The 1994 Montreal Expos are one of baseball's great "what-if" stories - what if they'd played out a full season? What if they'd won the World Series? Would they have been able to hold together such a talented team? Would they have saved baseball in Montreal?

One thing that really jumps out at you about the Expos' offense is its incredible balance. The team leader in homers hit 26, but they managed 209 155 home runs - an average of 26 19 per non-pitching lineup slot. [NOTE: Yes, my arithmetic goofed there somehow, as Travis Nelson has pointed out to me. I'll fix any other arithmetical errors as they come to my attention.] Nobody on this team walked a whole lot - besides Walker with 73, nobody drew more than 54 walks - but everybody drew at least a halfway respectable number of walks and hit for a good enough average to not have a horrid OBP, and nobody struck out 100 times. Everybody could steal a few bases. And everyone hit gobs of doubles. It doesn't look like a terrifying offense, but it was solid all the way through.

Walker and Alou, of course, were the offensive stars, and would go on to distinguished careers elsewhere. The hidden big year here was Grissom, who was dazzling - playing by far the best baseball of his long, erratic career - down the stretch in 1993, batting .353, scoring 34 runs and stealing 24 bases in 25 attempts in 41 games. And, of course, all the way down the depth chart (see more below) you see guys who have had long, productive major league careers.

As you can see, the Expos had an unusually poor-hitting pitching staff; if you break the numbers down (see below), the mainstays of the rotation were especially awful, while guys like Butch Henry, Denis Boucher and the relievers did OK in limited action.

Pitching Stats

Pitcher

W-L

SV

ERA

G

GS

CG

IP

H

HR

BB

K

R

ER

Jeff Fassero

15-8

0

3.00

32

31

2

207.1

176

17

58

189

79

69

Ken Hill

18-8

0

3.66

30

30

2

196.2

192

15

61

107

92

80

Pedro Martinez

13-5

1

3.20

26

25

1

157.1

121

12

50

156

59

56

Kirk Rueter

12-4

0

4.53

27

27

0

135

144

15

31

66

75

68

Butch Henry

9-5

1

2.82

34

17

0

127.2

120

12

24

78

42

40

Mel Rojas

4-3

22

3.09

79

0

0

110.2

96

13

27

103

46

38

Gil Heredia

9-3

1

3.28

48

7

0

107

117

10

20

89

45

39

Jeff Shaw

6-2

1

3.95

63

0

0

86.2

88

11

21

56

42

38

John Wetteland

5-6

42

2.31

72

0

0

85.2

55

5

25

101

24

22

Tim Scott

8-2

2

3.12

56

0

0

69.1

64

3

25

57

25

24

Dennis Martinez

5-1

0

2.53

8

8

0

57

46

5

16

43

21

16

Denis Boucher

3-2

0

3.83

15

7

0

47

48

7

10

31

23

20

Gabe White

1-1

1

6.08

7

5

0

23.2

24

4

11

17

16

16

Chris Nabholz

2-0

0

0.59

6

2

0

15.1

7

0

8

14

1

1

Brian Barnes

0-1

0

6.00

11

0

0

12

17

0

8

7

9

8

TOTAL

110-52

71

3.41

162

162

5

1466.1

1350

133

409

1133

623

556

What's striking here is that, even for a modern team, this staff never finished its starts. Felipe Alou had a great bullpen (and a deep roster to pinch hit for his helpless-hitting starters), and made extensive use of it. . . Ken Hill and Dennis Martinez went in opposite directions down the stretch in 1993, as Martinez salvaged what had been an awful year, while Hill had the swoon some were expecting again in 1994 when the strike hit . . . Wetteland was incredibly lights-out in 1993, and even moreso the end of the year.

More players:

Minor Hitters

PLAYER

G

AB

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

BB

K

SB-CS

Avg

Slg

OBP

DP

HB

Curtis Pride

10

9

4

1

1

1

3

5

0

3

1-0

.444

1.111

.444

0

0

Tim Laker

3

9

2

0

0

0

1

2

0

4

0-0

.222

.222

.222

0

0

Joe Siddall

9

9

1

1

0

0

0

1

0

2

0-0

.111

.222

.111

0

0

Frank Bolick

4

7

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1-0

.286

.286

.286

1

0

Mark Grudzielanek

2

5

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

2

0-0

.000

.000

.000

0

0

Chad Fonville

3

2

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0-2

1.000

1.000

1.000

0

0

Minor Pitchers

Pitcher

W-L

SV

ERA

G

GS

CG

IP

H

HR

BB

K

R

ER

Brian Looney

0-0

0

7.88

4

1

0

8

12

1

2

9

7

7

Rod Henderson

0-1

0

9.45

3

2

0

6.2

9

1

7

3

9

7

Heath Haynes

0-0

0

0.00

4

0

0

3.2

3

0

3

1

1

0

Carlos Perez

0-0

0

0.00

2

0

0

2.1

0

0

0

2

0

0

Luis Aquino

0-0

0

9.00

3

0

0

2

3

1

1

3

2

2

Reid Cornelius

0-0

0

4.50

1

0

0

2

2

1

0

0

1

1

Bryan Eversgerd

0-0

0

0.00

3

0

0

1.2

1

0

1

0

0

0

Curt Schmidt

0-0

0

0.00

1

0

0

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

Joey Eischen

0-0

0

54.00

1

0

0

0.2

4

0

0

1

4

4

Pitchers' Batting

PLAYER

G

AB

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

BB

K

SB-CS

Avg

Slg

OBP

DP

HB

Jeff Fassero

32

64

4

1

1

0

4

0

3

40

0-0

.078

.125

.119

0

0

Ken Hill

31

60

8

1

0

0

3

4

4

20

0-0

.133

.150

.188

2

0

Pedro Martinez

26

48

4

0

1

0

1

5

3

24

0-0

.083

.125

.135

1

0

Kirk Rueter

27

47

4

0

0

0

1

1

3

13

0-0

.085

.085

.140

0

0

Butch Henry

34

34

9

1

0

0

5

2

3

7

0-0

.265

.294

.324

0

0

Gil Heredia

48

25

6

0

0

0

1

1

0

3

0-0

.240

.240

.240

0

0

Dennis Martinez

8

16

1

0

0

0

0

2

2

4

0-0

.063

.063

.167

0

0

Mel Rojas

79

13

3

0

0

0

1

0

0

6

0-0

.231

.231

.231

0

0

Jeff Shaw

63

8

2

0

0

0

0

0

1

3

0-0

.250

.250

.333

0

0

Denis Boucher

15

9

2

2

0

0

1

0

0

4

0-0

.222

.444

.222

0

0

John Wetteland

72

5

1

0

0

0

0

1

0

2

0-0

.200

.200

.200

0

0

Gabe White

7

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

0-0

.000

.000

.200

0

0

Tim Scott

56

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

3

0-0

.000

.000

.000

0

0

Chris Nabholz

6

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

0-0

.000

.000

.333

0

0

Brian Barnes

11

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0-0

.000

.000

.000

0

0

Brian Looney

3

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0-0

.000

.000

.000

0

0

Rod Henderson

3

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0-0

.000

.000

.000

0

0

Luis Aquino

3

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0-0

1.000

1.000

1.000

0

0

No what-ifs about it: when the Expos are gone from Montreal, this team will be worth remembering.

Thanks for posting this. I often grind my teeth when I hear sportscasters taut the hated Braves' "winning their division 12 consecutive years" or "every year since 1991, the Braves have won their division".

I'm sure the Braves would have made the race interesting, like they do every year - but I like to believe the Expos would have held on down the stretch.

Posted by: Mr. Kotter at
August 18, 2004 5:07 PM

Looks like you got the error addressed. Use Excel, man, it'll save you a buncha time.

Interestingly, given the 110 wins as this "team" had, it's surprising that nobody on the pitching staff won more than 18 games. Gor that matter, only one pitcher even had 200 innings. I guess that's to be expected, since really there were two off-seasons for player movement in the midst of this 162 game span. It might be interesting to examine how a two- or three-headed player might stack up when you look at, say Pedro Martinez '94-95 and his predecessor from '93, or something.